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Talk:Hobbes and Enlightenment Politics, Science, Aesthetics/@comment-24423803-20140128021519/@comment-24416604-20140128062936
Reed, I will concede that Hobbes brushes over the constructive ''forces at play, but I would like to explain why Hobbes arguement is so necessary. Just follow me. My examples may come off as extreme, but they are necessary to get the point across. The state or government is the only body we willing subject ourselves to that can legally steal from us, enslave us, or even murder us. (Taxes, the draft, and the death penalty.) No one else can ''legally go about doing this. So why then do oblidge to social contracts in the first place? Well, here in America, the benefits (priviledges like national security, public education, etc. for obeying the law and punishment for those who do not) out-weigh the cons previously mention. As Hobbes suggests, we follow our laws out of self interest. Now, let's imagine you live in a "failed state." There is a government but no real governance. The state has a piece of paper saying that it is a state and has laws, but it has no real authority to punish those who go against it. (This is why places like Iraq are falling back into civil strife. There is a "government" but no real power to back it.) People who live in these sorts of states have no incentive to follow these social contracts. Thus, we have civil wars and political strife in places like sub-saharan Africa and the Middle East. Hobbes explains this on page 77, "it may be perceived what manner of life there would be where there were no common power to fear, by the manner of life which men that have fomerly lived under a peaceful government use to degernerate into a civil war." Basically, even if a group has been ruled as a society before, this can dissipate if the government loses force. Back to my Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa examples: If the "government" never has force in the first place, then the "society" (deamed a government by a piece of paper) is, in reality, a fascade for the political elites to attempt to rule and for the common people to live unpunished of their crimes. Thus, even in today's world, oblidging to societal contracts may not be in certain individuals' best interests in other countries. Sorry for the rant, but I'm getting to back to my point about Hobbes' reasoning for his negative approach of social contracts. Basically, to me, our bond to society is a miracle. Just think of all of the hardship the US endured to become what we are today: we were revolutionaries (killing our neighbors and former countrymen to gain a "new freedom"), we enslaved an entire ethnic group for over one-hundred years and then continued to deny them their rights for another nearly one-hundred years, we slaughtered ourselves in a civil war, and heck, a man was even beat to death with a cane in our Senate. Hobbes has every right to condemn man and his flaws. Society is neither pure nor perferct; it is only a better choice in certain, more stable circumstances. I will even go on the limb (since I have already been entirely too controversial) and say that Aristotle is naive to think that "the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual." If that is the case, then why do so many failed states exist today? Moreover, if a family leads to a village which leads to a community, why are there so many torn familial bonds in both politically stable and politically unstable states and how do these torn families play into the society as a whole? I conclude with a Hobbes quote and my insertions in brackets to explain, "The passions that incline men to peace are fear of death authority to punish given to legitimate governments that actually practice governance, desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living states offer benefits; unstable states do not offer enough to out-weight the cons, and a hope by their industry to obtain them are willing to submit only if there is something greater to be gained." SELF INTEREST!! (It may be negative, but it's at the heart of what drives us all.)